Gordon Riots
![The Gordon Riots, by Charles Green](/Images/godic/202501/15/Charles_Green135354.jpg")
![Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association.](/Images/godic/202501/15/LordGeorgeGordon5354.jpg")
![Map of London Wall, Moorgate, Moorfields and Bethlem Royal Hospital from John Rocque's Map of London, dated 1746.](/Images/godic/202501/15/Rocque_e1_MoorgateCrop5355.jpg")
![The Gordon Riots, depicted in a painting by John Seymour Lucas](/Images/godic/202501/15/The_Gordon_Riots_by_John_Seymour_Lucas5355.jpg")
The Gordon Riots of 1780 began as an anti-Catholic protest in London against the Papists Act of 1778, which intended to reduce official discrimination against British Catholics. The protest evolved into riots and looting.
The Popery Act 1698 had imposed a number of penalties and disabilities on Roman Catholics in England; the 1778 Act eliminated some of these. An initial peaceful protest led on to widespread rioting and looting and was the most destructive in the history of London. Painted on the wall of Newgate prison was the proclamation that the inmates had been freed by the authority of "His Majesty, King Mob". The term "King Mob" afterwards denoted an unruly and fearsome proletariat.